March 2005 Adventures

This is definitely the month of “On the Road Again”, as we continue to visit with supporting churches, family, & friends.

We began by visiting First Presbyterian Church in Hilton Head, SC.  This is a photo of us greeting the head of the Missions Committee, Max Judge.  Visiting with First Presbyterian gives us the added benefit of visiting with Ed’s brother & wife, Mark & Betsy Baker, as this is their home church.

From Hilton Head, we came home for a few days.  Linda has a group of girlfriends from high school who meet together about every 5 years.  This was the year of the Reunion here in Atlanta.  These gals have been friends for 38 years, but Ed has been friends with 2 of them since 5^th grade!  We visited Stone Mountain, Underground Atlanta, as well as talked & ate for 3 days!  Here we all are – Brenda Smith, Susan Dods, Carolyn Cukierman, & Linda.

While the gals were in town, we visited Bold Springs UMC.  The pastor, Frank Brock, has been a friend of ours for many years.  It is always a pleasure to see him & his family again.  Here Ed is preaching and then presenting Frank a framed ñandutí.

We were then able to spend a few days in Atlanta, getting a few projects at our home taken care of, as well as joining friends for dinner. 

This month we were able to visit one of our Northern supporting churches - Dunn Loring UMC in Dunn Loring, VA.  We were both busy during the service in this church as Ed had a chance to preach and Linda showed an abridged version of our PowerPoint presentation.  This was our first opportunity to meet the folks from Dunn Loring, and we really enjoyed our time with them.

We came home from VA, and headed to FL to visit Ed’s father again before going back to Paraguay.

We returned from Florida, and left the next day for our 3 week tour of the mid-western states.  This was a time to visit churches, as well as Linda’s family.

We started on Palm Sunday heading to Elkton, KY.  Here we visited with George & Mary Jo Phillips.  They have been supporters of the various ministries in Paraguay for over 10 years.  Mary Jo started the day care school in Santa Rosa, named The Mary Jo Phillips Day Care Center.  We were able to visit with 3 of the churches that support the Phillips, Jernigan’s Chapel, Beech Creek UMC, and Central City UMC.  Here we are with Mary Jo & George in their beautiful home in the hills of Kentucky.

Next we headed to Belleville, IL.  St. Matthew UMC has also been a long time supporter of Paraguay.  They send medical teams which we have had the opportunity to work with.  We stayed in the home of Keith & Karen Breithaupt, and had the opportunity to visit with several team members at St. Matthew as they were rehearsing for their annual Easter pageant.

From Illinois, we went to Overland Park, KS to visit Linda’s twin sister & her husband, Brenda & Jeff Smith.  They came with us to visit another sister & husband in Sanger, TX; Judy & Jim Grounds.  We left Sanger and headed to Dublin, TX to spend Easter with Linda’s uncle & aunt, JW & Glenna Davis.  Dublin is the town Linda was born in, so it’s always fun to visit.  Sunday night, we were able to share with JW & Glenna’s church, First Baptist of Dublin, about our ministry.

After Dublin, we drove to Houston, TX to visit Linda’s 4^th sister & husband, Martha & Ralph Cole.  Houston is also the home of Lone Star Bit, the company that made our drill rig.  We had a chance to try out the new hydraulic upgrade for our rig.  This would make drilling so easy Linda could even drill 300’ alone! 

We made a quick trip to Corpus Christi, TX to visit Ed’s uncle & aunt, Carl & Lynn Strauss.

This takes us to the end of March but not the end of our travels!  You will have to wait for our April report to read about the rest of our adventures.  Until then, we remain…